Southwest Virginia Blogs

The Kingsport Times is reporting here on Congressman Boucher’s energy plan and his new position as chairman of a House Energy Subcommittee.

Specifically, the article addresses the Congressman’s plan to push legislation that would decrease America’s reliance on oil and increase our need for coal (especially coal from Southwest Virginia).

Other bloggers on the right, not surprisingly from areas outside the Coalfields, have continuously criticized Congressman Boucher’s plans to boost the economy in the Coalfields and help break our addiction to Middle East oil. This issue should not be about Republican vs. Democrat.

Attacking Congressman Boucher on this issue is like saying dependence on foreign oil and poverty in the Coalfields are good things.

In the article, the Congressman said, “[w]e have a 250-year reserve of coal, and coal is very important to the economy of this region. It can be converted into a liquid fuel with a technology that is well-known to power cars and trucks[.]”

I sincerely hope that those on the right - bloggers, legislators, and voters - will put aside partisanship to unite behind Congressman Boucher’s effort to make America a little more dependent on Southwest Virginia and a little less on the Middle East.

The exhaustion that led to taking some time off weekend before last morphed during the week into full-blown bronchitis with a dash or two of other illnesses that can easily knock a 58-year-old man (soon to be 59) off his feet. After a week of taking it easy, I honored a commitment to shoot the girls' basketball game at Floyd County High School Friday night. Big mistake. That brief trip into arctic air increased my body temperature and added to the already dangerous level of congestion in my lung. Spent most of Saturday and Sunday in bed, with occasional trips to the computer to keep Capitol Hill Blue updated. That's the problem when you run a news web site that is, nowadays, pretty much a one-man show. The news goes on, even if the combination publisher-editor-reporter-janitor is sick. Maybe another day in bed will allow me to get my bearings and be up to covering the monthly board of supervisors meeting as well as a jury trial in Circuit Court. Maybe.

I've resurrected one web site from my sordid past -- American Newsreel -- and turned what once was my company URL -- DougThompson.Com -- into a commentary site. Newsreel will, as it did before, examine the absurd, inanane and unusual in America. DougThompson.Com will be a place for commentary on subjects that are not covered in my column in Capitol Hill Blue. If you get a chance, check both out and let me know what you think.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.

Friends whose opinion I value greatly have talked to me recently about our decision to close our studio at The Jacksonville Center and, as a result of their urgings, we have decided to remain.

The decision to close the studio, which never really reached what we felt was its full potential, was a difficult one. We were one of the original tenants at the Center and it has been part of our lives since coming to Floyd in 2004. My mother was a volunteer at the time and she brought the center to my attention when we were looking for gallery locations.

So the studio will remain open for the time being while we explore ways to refocus it and its mission. We also plan to expand our gallery offerings to other cities where we still have business interests.

So, when you're in the area, drop by and say hello. We're located in The Jacksonville Center, 220 Parkway LN S., Floyd, VA.

Sadly, Amy and I have decided to close our studio, Blue Ridge Creative, at The Jacksonville Center. Our departure ends a three-year stint as one of the original tenants of the Center. Opening the studio brought us to Floyd -- a homecoming for me and a new home for Amy. But the studio never evolved as we envisioned. I had hoped to use it as a quiet refuge to work on video and photo projects and catalog 40 years of work. Amy hoped to use it for sculpture. But we got involved in so many other activities that took away available time that could have been used in the studio. I shoot high school sports and cover county government and courts for The Floyd Press plus I have a number of out-of-county business interests that demand my time and attention. Amy is involved in volunteer activities that keep her busy. So the studio closes at the end of the month so we can concentrate on the many other activities that make life in Floyd so enjoyable.

As you all may have guessed, I am running a little behind on regular posting.

I need to do a post on the HUGE rallies that were held in Clintwood and across the Ninth District this past weekend. Congressman Boucher was joined by Jim Webb, Senator Puckett, and Cecil Roberts at the campaign stops. I took several photos and will try to get those up soon.

Also, as was mentioned in the comments, I have some big personal news and photos to share. Maybe I can get something together on that while watching the results roll in tomorrow evening.

For now, though, I am spending all my time on GOTV. I made some more phone calls this evening, then put out precinct signs until 12:00 AM, and will be around the polls tomorrow to help in anyway I can.

We will not get a second chance at beating George Allen. It is now or never.

Call your family, friends, and anyone else you can think of to remind them to vote. Your calls and requests could literally make the difference in this close election.

After checking out the upgrades to both Firefox and Internet Explorer, all I can say is "so?"

Neither lights my fire and I'm sticking with Safari on my Mac and Firefox 1.5 on the PC.

Mozilla seems to want to out Microsoft itself with a bug-loaded Firefox 2.0 and the new IE is just more of the same from MS.

I suspect the same will be true of MS Vista when it hits the market. I'll just wait until they have the bugs worked out (assuming they ever do which is in itself a big assumption).

Yesterday’s Washington Post included an enthusiastic endorsement of Jim Webb.

The endorsement also included some reasons for why not to vote for Sen. Allen, such as these:

Mr. Allen lacks any comparable independent-mindedness. He has spent his time in the Senate in lock step with the Bush administration, embracing tax cuts that have imperiled the nation’s fiscal health; subsidies for oil and gas companies that hardly needed the help; prisoner detention policies that have undercut America’s image abroad; and restrictions on embryonic stem cell research despite its medical potential.

The good news for Sen. Allen is it did not mention anything about “Macaca” this time.

The two candidates for U.S. Senate met yesterday on NBC’s Meet the Press for their first televised debate. A second is scheduled for today in Fairfax.

Here is the Meet the Press video:

I thought Webb did very well. Folks have to remember that Webb has not spent his entire adult life running for an office like Allen. That being said, Webb really has improved on the practice of politics and I think that showed in yesterday’s debate.

At first I thought it was an earthworm on the floor of our kitchen but it was too skinny to be a worm. And earthworms aren't black. About four inches long, it lay coiled towards the center of the floor but slithered quickly off towards the kitchen sink as I approached and into a small hole between the linoleum and the bottom of the cabinet under the sick.

I opened the cabinet door just in time to see it slither down into the opening between the bottom of the cabinet and the kitchen sink drain pipe and into the crawl space under the house.

It looked like either a baby black snake or rat snake. I wondered if its mother had found her way into our crawl space and hatched her eggs.

Our crawl space is almost deep enough to be a basement -- a little over five feet high. Amy can stand up in the space but I must stoop. I picked up a flashlight and ventured into the crawl space but found no signs of reptile life. I suspect the baby was small enough to crawl in through one of the vents to our crawl space and then found its way up the drain pipe into the kitchen. Mama is probably raising her young in the woods that comprise our back yard.

Which explains why we haven't seen any mice lately.

Yes, sushi. Raw fish. In Floyd.

It was Sushi night at Over the Moon Friday and the overflow crowd dined on California Rolls, seaweed salad, Miso soup and other Japanest delicacies.

And it was, by all accounts, a success and something the owners will try again.

If you missed Sushi, you can still try out Mexican night at Over the Moon, starting a 6 p.m. today.

Ole!

Here is one of my favorite Congressional challengers this year. Hurst is taking on a big challenge - going after Tom Davis - and will need our support.

Hurst for Congress

A couple of quick notes:

Hung photos over the weekend in Oddfellas Cantina. If you're by for lunch or dinner, check them out and let me know what you think. Bill Bell, our local landscape photographer extraordinaire, will be putting his superlative scenes on the opposite wall of the dining room. Mine are all faces. Maybe we'll call the shows "Faces and Places."

Showing a historical restrospective of my photography today to the Floyd Rotary Club. They meet for lunch each week at Ray's and often invite speakers. This means revising and updating the slide show that I've used for talks to the Friends of Floyd and other groups. I'm adding updates of local scenes.

Busy time. Spent all day Monday in Wytheville working on a video project for the Mount Rogers Center. Shuttled between the county administration building and the courthouse Tuesday covering the sentencing of Gary Cotton (among other cases) and the monthly meeting of the board of supervisors. Didn't finish up until late Tuesday night.

As Amy so often asks: "Just when does this retirement thing kick in?"

Here is some good news for Tazewell County.

Jennmar Corp. of Virginia, Inc., a subsidiary of Frank Calandra, Inc. & Subsidiaries and a provider of quality roof and standing support products for the mining and tunneling industry, will invest $6 million to build a new facility in Tazewell County[.]

. . .

Jennmar . . . chose the State of Virginia due to many positives for a manufacturing facility. Virginia has a fair state corporate tax structure, is politically corporate friendly to include workmen’s compensation and environmental laws and is pro-active in enhancing future business. Tazewell County offers excellent banking and municipality services.

Congrats to Tazewell. Not to take anything away from them, but I am more than ready to see some companies investing in Dickenson County like this.

This project will also get a nice boost from Governor Kaine, in the form of a $150,000 grant from the Governor’s Opportunity Fund.

USA Today discovered Floyd in a recent visit while researching a story on The Crooked Road.

Writes Jayne Clark:

You don't mess with tradition in the green hills and hollows of Southwest Virginia. And judging from Alzora Wood's steely glare and that 4-foot-long wand she's wielding, you don't mess with her, either. Bands take shape on the corner, and a street party atmosphere prevails.

The object of Wood's evil eye is an overalls-clad man in the back row at the Floyd Country Store Friday Night Jamboree who's jabbering away as a gospel group performs before a packed audience.

"I don't like them talkin' or dancin' when there's gospel," says Wood, stretching the wand from behind the store's wooden counter to poke the offender's shoulder.

There'll be time for that later during the bluegrass performances, when old and young, city and country folk, the rhythmically gifted and challenged, swarm the dance floor and pound out a flat-footin' beat so fierce that just standing nearby makes the soles of your feet tingle.

The article includes a link to a Flash slide and audio presentation.

As of 1pm, Kos has written a new diary urging the DKos faithful to contribute to Webb’s campaign. Here’s the link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/27/133529/285

My own contribution to that thread has been to complain that I’ve seen little (or nothing) from the local party leadership to suggest that they are involved in Webb’s campaign. No LTEs, few yard-signs (I got mine from Brian Patton, thank you - I’m out now - can I get some more?). Although fund-raising is clearly important (especially against Allen’s millions), we need to make better use of existing party structure. And we need to coordinate better between the Boucher campaign and Webb’s appearances in the 9th-district.

Four days of FloydFest starts Thursday at the site just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Now in its 5th year, the music and arts extravaganza continues to grow.

A story in Sunday's Richmond Times Dispatch showcases the festival. What is doesn't do is give you the dates for this year's events (July 27-30). I can't take credit for discovering that oversight. Fred First was first (pun fully intended).

The photo of the Kasun Ensemble (above) is from last year's festival. I'll be there all four days this year to shoot stills and video. Say hello if you're there.

Don’t forget folks that a fundraising breakfast for Congressman Rick Boucher will be held Saturday, July 15, 2006, beginning at 9:30 a.m. at the John Fox Jr. House in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. The cost is $25 per person, or $150 to sponsor the event. The food is always wonderful! Come out and support our Congresman and his re-election efforts. Thanks!

Don’t forget folks that a fundraising breakfast for Congressman Rick Boucher will be held Saturday, July 15, 2006, beginning at 9:30 a.m. at the John Fox Jr. House in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. The cost is $25 per person, or $150 to sponsor the event. The food is always wonderful! Come out and support our Congresman and his re-election efforts. Thanks!